Comments

I actually like what Stuart says. I think it is insane that we are spreading out over fertile farm ground when we have thousands of vacant buildings inside the city and suburbs. I hate seeing completely vacant shopping centers and malls and I am not even talking about the inner city... I am talking about Shawnee, Lenexa, and OP.

another proposed boondoggle just like the barely used US 59 I avoid using now
while driving old 59. I go to Lawrence 22 or 23 days out of the month and I barely
see traffic on that new highway. I see lots of animal carcasses because
the road went through their old woods and many cops pulling over
lawless Franklin County drivers that speeding laws don't apply to them.
with this art laugher tax cut in place and hundreds of million in cuts needed
to pay for it how does blowing this kind of money sit with the tea party
mantra of fiscal responsibility? again if most of eastern kansas was Indian reservations
until the 1860's and there are sites affected by this nonsense doesn't make my
actions useless obstruction just because a society with no knowledge of it's
history and white courts who use the power of money purchased denial
to suppress their wrongs a bad thing. Some people were stating this yesterday.
We stopped tribal sites from being affected with the existing route of the new 59.
Learn more....whine less.

I know many people who use that highway everyday. They all say it made their commute much shorter and love that it is finally built. I don't think you know what you're talking about. Sure, if you were on the highway during non-peak hours (aka: not during the work rush), it may seem relatively empty. I doubt it is that way all the time.

The idiots on the road make it dangerous. The only time I had problems on the old 59 was when the meth heads thought passing going up a hill was ok. Now on the new road they just drive faster and more dangerously. It will only be a matter of time, when there is more traffic, like tuschkahouma said, it is way empty most the time, and then we'll be building cables for whoever the victim is.

A relevant study worth looking at was done in the 90s where they compared Des Moines, IA and Lincoln, NE, each roughly the same population, but Des Moines spending a billion dollars more creating a transportation loop around itself. Guess what: the congestion rate was LESS on the Lincoln roads than the Des Moines roads, because the ribbons of asphalt promoted sprawl, folks living further away and commuting further, and businesses locating way out in the boonies. KC metro is already seriously sprawled; this will only make it worse.

Tusch is right about the Franklin County drivers. They speed all the time. Coming to town, leaving town, in town. I can almost understand coming to town, but leaving? They're just going back to Franklin County for cryin' out loud. Whst's the rush?

You all need to realize what the impact of the new Intermodal transportation facility in Gardner will be to the existing highways!
Thousands of containers being loaded and unloaded on to semi's going in every direction every day!!!

Matthew "Naked Bongos" McCounananan is a terrible actor. I think the naked bongo thing had something to do with James Dean. I don't think Matt knew that Dean's contemporaries used to call him the Human Ashtray, due to his penchant for having dominant men put cigarettes out on his chest. You can learn a lot from reading Hollywood Babylon.

"You all need to realize what the impact of the new Intermodal transportation facility in Gardner will be to the existing highways! Thousands of containers being loaded and unloaded on to semi's going in every direction every day!!!"

And who forced them to build it there? It was built there because it supposedly has such great access. If it isn't enough let one of the richest men in the world pay for the new roads or better yet, just restrict their access to the interstate. Hopefully instead they'll rebuild all the railbeds that use to go to practically every town in Kansas which they tore up after consolidating and it was profitable. Make it profitable again, let the free enterprise system we hear so much about rebuild the infrastructure.

The new 59 is awesome. Some of you have forgotten how awful, dangerous and slow the old highway was! I haven't seen near as many cops since they opened the new highway. If you are speeding, you should be pulled over.

I traveled the new 59 this past Wednesday evening going from Lawrence to Baldwin. From the junction of Hwy 10 to the Baldwin exit it took me about 8 minutes. I counted 86 vehicles traveling towards Lawrence. Three of those were semi's. This was a little after 5:00pm.